A Hundred Years of War

Are we really supposed to get excited and rejoice in the targeted assassination of enemy leaders? President Obama might end up making things worse for the opposite reasons Liz and Dick Cheney tell us. He’s so unsure of himself in military matters he’s leaving the big decisions to shortsighted generals.

Drone attacks are terrorism too. Killing entire families, including women and children, in the “border” areas of the “AF-PAK” theater to hit one “militant” or “extremist,” without charge or trial, repeated countless times. This kind of thing is a recipe for a hundred years of war.

Al Qaeda didn’t exist inside Iraq until the United States invaded. The U.S. toppled the apple cart away from the traditional Sunni (mostly secular) elites toward untested (mostly religious) Shia elements (tied, ironically, to Iran). In the 1980s, blind Cold War logic led the secular U.S. in Afghanistan to aid some of the most backward Sharia-law practicing fundamentalists.

Imperialism choked off many Islamic countries’ secular resistance movements leaving only the mosques where political activity could survive. Power reinforces certain religious brands over others, like right-wing Christian evangelism in the United States or right-wing Shia fundamentalism in Iran. But powerlessness can also reinforce religious brands. (It’s no surprise that the Iranian revolution of 1979 became Islamicized given that the Shah wiped out any viable secular movements for social betterment).

Since 1945, the U.S. has supported a fundamentalist theocracy in Saudi Arabia. If the problem with Al Qaeda is that they hate the West for “religious” reasons then why do they also hate the government in Riyadh? A U.S.-supported theocratic dictatorship hoarding oil wealth for a tiny elite. Here is where Osama bin Laden gets to appear honorable because he renounced his elite station in life to fight jihad. He even released a video recently citing global climate change, and the United States’ disproportionate contribution of greenhouse gases, as yet another reason to hate the infidels.

People resisting occupation whether they believe in God, Jehovah, Allah, or the Great Spaghetti Monster in the Sky will resist with what’s readily available. In the current context that means I.E.D.s, suicide bombs, and car bombs, the newly improved and perfected instruments of urban guerrilla warfare we can thank certain U.S. and U.K. leaders for making a permanent fixture of 21st Century life.

The invasion of Iraq was the greatest terrorist recruitment program ever. It destabilized one of the most important big cities in the Arab world. It fueled pan-Arab nationalism as well as jihad against the West. It caused a sectarian bloodbath because of the jolt given to power relations by external military force.

People are brutalized for decades and then we’re “shocked” — “shocked” — that the brutalized people turn around and behave brutally themselves. Bitter, long-term power struggles have been unleashed in the heart of the Middle East and in South Asia. They certainly will not be resolved because of some drone attacks and targeted assassinations.

The only thing these desperate actions accomplish is to further radicalize and Islamicize people who would otherwise much rather peacefully coexist. How long can the U.S. go on ignoring the underlying social and political causes of “terrorism?” Nobody wants to acknowledge that there might be grievances on the other side that need to be looked at. We couldn’t hear it nine years ago after 9-11, and we still can’t hear it now. Ostrich-like we bury our heads and push forward.

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About Joseph Palermo

Joseph Palermo is Professor of History, California State University, Sacramento. Professor Palermo's most recent book is The Eighties (Pearson 2012). He has also written two other books: In His Own Right: The Political Odyssey of Senator Robert F. Kennedy (Columbia, 2001); and Robert F. Kennedy and the Death of American Idealism (Pearson, 2008). Before earning a Master's degree and Doctorate in History from Cornell University, Professor Palermo completed Bachelor's degrees in Sociology and Anthropology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a Master's degree in History from San Jose State University. His expertise includes the 1980s; political history; presidential politics and war powers; social movements of the 20th century; the 1960s; and the history of American foreign policy. Professor Palermo has also written articles for anthologies on the life of Father Daniel Berrigan, S.J. in The Human Tradition in America Since 1945 (Scholarly Resources Press, 2003); and on the Watergate scandal in Watergate and the Resignation of Richard Nixon (CQ Press, 2004).

Comments

The people in Iraq have a right to sing the blues. In the early part of the twentieth century the oil companies kept promising them they would develop their oil but kept jerking them around, They did this several times according to John M Blair’s Control of Oil. Then came Desert Storm , according to the NYTimes, Kuwait was diagonally drilling over the border under Iraqi land.They attacked Kuwait and we came in and clobbered them for it. Then came the years of sanctions hundreds of thousands of children died according to the U.N. Then when sanctions were about to be lifted and Hans Blix couldn’t find any WMD , we invaded their country. Then as many as a million people died as the War of Terrorism plagued the oil rich and luck poor country. In the documentary My Country My Country a Iraqi doctor talked about the “curse of oil” on his people. A true history of the country could be easily called the Iraqi Blues.